The trial of former Minneapolis Police officer Derek Chauvin continued for a sixth day on Monday with witness after witness seemingly sealing the fate of the disgraced officer and accused murderer. Testimony from three witnesses, including Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo and Dr. Bradford Wankhede Langenfeld, an emergency medicine physician at Hennepin County Medical Center debunking the defenses attempts at making Floyd responsible for his own death.
Minneapolis Police Chief Medaria Arradondo, after lengthy discussion regarding his credentials, detailed Chauvin’s violations of MPD protocols during the arrest of George Floyd last May as contrary to department policy. “Once Mr. Floyd had stopped resisting, and certainly once he was in distress and trying to verbalize that, that should have stopped,” Arradondo testified.
The chief said Chauvin’s kneeling on Floyd’s neck for nine minutes and 29 seconds is not an acceptable or trained tactic and was a grosse violation of the policies around reasonable use of force and rendering aid. In his testimony, Arradondo described the department’s training programs and the core value of treating everyone with “dignity and respect.” He said that officers are required to be familiar with policies, including de-escalation and use of force.
Last year, Arradondo fired Chauvin and three other officers involved in Floyd’s death, which he said was “murder.”
Dr. Bradford Wankhede Langenfeld, said he treated a non-responsive Floyd in the Hennepin County Medical Center emergency room for about half an hour following Chauvin’s brutality as he and hospital staff unsuccessfully tried to restart his heart. Langenfeld said the “more likely possibility” of Floyd’s cardiac arrest was hypoxia, or lack of oxygen while defense attorneys attempted to get the doctor to say that hypoxia, in Floyd’s case, was caused by drugs such as fentanyl, methamphetamine or a combination of both. While the doctor admitted substance abuse could cause hypoxia, but he stuck to his guns explaining – at times in graphic detail – that Chauvin’s kneeling was the cause of Floyd’s death.
Minneapolis Police Inspector Katie Blackwell, who recently served as commander of the department’s training division, said officers are trained in their medical unit about the dangers of positional asphyxia and the need to get someone on their side or sit up to recover. Officers are also taught to provide medical help to suspects.
Looking at a photo of Chauvin on Floyd’s neck, Blackwell testified that it was not in line with department training. They train using a one-arm or two-arm neck restraint. “I don’t know what kind of improvised position that is,” she said. “It’s not what we train.”
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